


Wish

by earthphoenix (roughknuckles)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birthday, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-29
Updated: 2006-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughknuckles/pseuds/earthphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Severus Snape's birthday and only one other person within the Order seems to care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish

The kitchen was abandoned and dark at midnight, switching the day before Severus's birthday to the day of his birthday. The clock hand tipped to the right side of the twelve, nothing changed. 

All of the present members of the Order were sleeping heavily in their rooms, couples twined around each other, clinging.

It is a misconception to think that people who are born to darkness enjoy nothing else. The truth is, such people love the light. They appreciate it more than those who were born there. Severus was born to darkness, and was often required to remain there. And so sitting out in the garden, in January no less, Severus thrived, watching the morning light as it slowly crept across the sky. The sun would rise. And the day would come. A sunny day. Severus could tell. 

One Order member however was just coming in through the door, his tall black boots echoing a little against the hardwood. Sirius's neck was covered in lip marks, from a woman's lipstick. It was close to dawn, and Sirius yawned as he walked to the kitchen.

Severus was looking up to the stars. Watching them slowly fade away. But knew they were still there, looking down on him, even if he couldn't see them any longer.

_No party, of course not, he's sitting outside ... perfect._ Sirius took a beer from the fridge and stripped his jacket off, walking outside to light a cigarette. "Someone's up late."

"Trying to draw attention to yourself Black?"

"I never have to try." He lit the cigarette, sucking a drag out of it before he exhaled, "Rough night?"

"Peaceful." _Until now._

"Lucky you."

Sirius leaned back against the wall, cracking his neck.

Severus leaned back on one arm as he sat upon a marble bench. His fingerless gloves kept as least the palm of his hand warm, while his bare fingers curled around the edge of the bench. He wouldn't look at Black, not if he didn't have to.  
  
Sirius pushed off the wall and paced in the garden a little, in the rain-greened, moss-covered garden. "Happy Birthday ..." 

Severus blinked, he looked to Sirius, baffled, "... what?" he didn't think anyone knew, no one ever bothered to make a point of mentioning it before.

"I said happy birthday."

Intense astonishment touched Severus's pale face, "Oh. Thank you."

"What? It's your birthday, right?" Sirius looked at him.  
  
"Yes ... it is." Severus said carefully, as if by giving that information away was somehow sealing his fate to some unknown doom.  
  
Sirius tossed his cigarette to the ground, rubbing it out with his boot, "Let me guess, you never do anything for it?"

"I watch the sunrise."

Sirius sat on the bench beside Snape, leaning back likewise. He smelled like expensive women's perfume, "Want to get out of here?"

Severus was unnerved, what did he mean by this? And sitting next to him? "No, I don't think I will. I suggest you sleep off whatever has got you intoxicated enough to ask in the first place."  
  
Sirius rolled his eyes, "I wish. I'm not drunk, just ... want to get out of here." He knocked his torn-denim covered knee against Snape's. "Come on. It's your fucking birthday, and I need a drink."

Severus turned and glared at Sirius, "I don't know what game your playing at ... but I'm not going to play your games, not today, Black."

Sirius glared, "Look. I just had to date a woman. I need a fucking drink."

_Had to date?_  "Who's stopping you? Merlin knows your loaded, go take yourself out for a drink, there was no need to come back here." 

Sirius sighed, "Because I ... hate drinking by myself." Sirius rolled his eyes and walked into the house, "FINE, bloody fine."

"... since when are we booze buddies." Severus mumbled once the other man left.

Sirius came back outside and sat on the bench with two large bottles, "Do you like Rum or ... Rum?"  
  
"Still here are you?"

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine? You know, the LEAST you could do, considering, is to take a BLOODY drink on your damn birthday!"

"Fine."

Sirius shoved a bottle at him, "This is why no one fucking tries being nice to you."

Severus accepted the bottle in his hand, "Thanks" he said quietly, still guarded. From experience, Severus found that people who express unnatural kindness have ulterior motives for their actions, which have nothing to do with the kind act whatsoever.

Sirius sighed, straddling the bench, facing Severus as he drank. "Do you have cake?"

"No." He said simply, drinking directly from the bottle, a familiar act.

Sirius seemed to watch Snape for a moment, "Do you ... like cake?"

"Vanilla."

_Vanilla. He likes Vanilla cake_. "With icing?"

"Vanilla." he said again. He drank still. Toeing at the pebbles in the garden at his feet.

Sirius laughed a bit, "Ever been on a date that was so bad that you wanted to douse yourself in wine and light yourself on fire?"

"No, and yes."  
  
Sirius nodded, "No and Yes ... so you've never been on a date but you're willing to light yourself up, huh?"

"Precisely."  
  
Sirius snapped his fingers at the kitchen and a small cake floated out. Vanilla icing, one candle. It landed between the two of them, and Sirius kept drinking. "Suppose you could do it with the candle."

Severus looked down at the small cake, the side of his lips curled into a small smile, he bit his lip, then looked at the ground, _what does he want? why is he doing this?_  Severus just had to get his head around it.

"Do you want me to sing?"

Severus laughed once for the mere shock value, "You'd do that?"

Sirius shook his head, "I just ... Yeah. Yeah I would. Haaaaapppy biiiirrrrthday tooo youuuuu ..."

Severus looked over to Sirius with a smirk, raised his hand, "No, you don't have to sing."

Sirius's voice was rough and he was saying the words more than singing exactly, but they were there. "Critic."

"But ... thank you."

Sirius nodded with a little smile, "So ... are you ever going to blow it out?"

Severus swallowed, _supposed to make a wish_. Then leaning over, Severus suddenly blew out the single candle with little effort.

Sirius clapped slowly. "Did you wish?"

"Mh."

"What for?"

"Can't tell you ... isn't that how it works? Can't tell, otherwise it doesn't come true?"

"Depends ..." He lit another cigarette between his lips.

Severus traced a finger around just the edge of the cake, taking some icing onto his finger, before he put it in his mouth, he sighed "It's good." Which was both a surprise, and saddening to the man in black.

Sirius blew the match in his fingers out and watched Snape for a moment. "We should have some."

Severus laughed to himself, confronting an irony. The cake had only one candle. That was appropriate. That was in fact his first birthday cake. His first birthday wish.

There was something elemental about the rough, stoic, acid-tongued Death Eater that Sirius appreciated. Double agent or no, he'd never changed to suit anyone, and he meant everything he said.

Sirius reached down and broke off a piece, eating the soft, white cake with his fingers. "Mmm."

Severus looked over to the cake, decided, what the hell, might as well, gone this far with it - and broke off a section for himself to eat as well.

The pureblood smiled though his mouthful and swallowed, "See? Not so bad, birthdays."

Severus ate, swallowed, and washed it down with a drink, "Not so bad." _Birthdays, to celebrate one's birth, to celebrate_...  _life._

Sirius laughed again, louder, sucking icing from his fingers before drinking.

"You're laughing ..." Severus pointed out, "do I amuse you?"

Sirius shook his head, "No, no. Just ... thinking that I sort of have a present for you, even."

Severus looked at Sirius directly now,  _come on now, no lies_ , "You do?"

Sirius nodded, still looking at Snape. "Call this a date and now you can say yes to both questions."

"You  _think_  you're going to light me on fire?" Severus's eyes tightened suspiciously.

Sirius laughed and shook his head, leaning back a little, "Not what I meant."

Severus considered, no, the entire thing had him baffled from the first instant Sirius wished him a happy birthday, "What  _do_  you mean?"

Sirius drank again, then looked at Snape. "What I mean is that I was out on a date, with a gorgeous woman. We went to the best places, then her place, we had sex ... I stole some information from her library and I left." Sirius rubbed his face, "I've been doing this for a couple months now, distracting people we need to get things from so that I ... or someone else can come back with something the Order can use." Sirius looked away, "I hate it."

"Really?"  _I would think those tasks suited well to your talents_ , and yet Severus refrained from making this insult. 

Sirius drank again and continued, looking down at the decimated cake, "I hate it for two reasons, one ... I don't even _like_ these people. I don't want anything to do with them and two ..." He looked up, "No matter who it is I have to seduce, it only throws it in my face that I wish it were someone else."

Severus didn't know what made him ask, this was good rum by the way, "Who is it you rather seduce?"

Sirius licked his lips, answering matter-of-factly, "You."  _Thank god for the rum._

Severus was silent for a long time. He didn't move, he didn't blink, was he even breathing? "Why?" _The secrets I have, I tell to Dumbledore himself, you cannot gain anything from me._  
  
Sirius didn't look away, "I ask myself every single day." He stood, swallowing, no smile on his face at all. "Well ... Happy birthday anyway." Sirius turned, striding back into the house and upstairs to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Severus leaned forward on the bench. The nearly empty bottle in hand, and ... here comes the sun, the rays touched his face, and Severus smiled now that he was quite alone, and quite allowed to do so.  _Happy birthday._

**Author's Note:**

> co-authored. originally written for thestralskinphoenixtears


End file.
